(Revised October 21, 2009) This week, of which the primary feature was our successful return from the New York City Pen Show, also  offered a remarkably interesting contrast in pens that needed to be worked on. Here I present for your consideration two objects. They are both fountain pens, and they’re both black. This they have in common. From the end of the section back, however, they are remarkably different. And they are both exciting.

Of foremost cachet, but not the first to reach the bench — or the more interesting — was this gorgeous Parker Lucky Curve Nº 33 eyedropper filler:

The pen was in good, albeit not mint condition, and in fact all that its owner wanted was to have it reblackened. I examined it closely enough to assure myself that it could not be sold by some future owner as a pen with great original color, and then I put it through the G-10 process. Is it perfect? No. Is it a lovely pen? As Dick Martin used to say, “You bet your bippy!” By any standard, it’s a beautiful pen, one I wouldn’t mind owning. I hope its owner will love it as much as I loved having it in my care.

Of greater interest to me, despite its much lesser cachet, was this little gem:

Most people would consider this almost a throwaway pen. It’s from the 1960s. There are mold lines on the section, and the plastic is certainly no Precious Resin. The nib, as you might expect, is steel — plain steel, not even gold-plated steel that’s lost most of its plating. (Which is in my opinion quite all right given that it matches the chrome-plated furniture.) So what is it with this particular pen?

Well, it turns out to be very interesting mechanically. With its big transparent window it might almost be a piston filler, and that’s what I first assumed because the window wasn’t clear enough that I could see the breather tube running up the barrel. So it’s not a piston.

Taking off the blind cap, I discovered a clear plastic button — also pretty well inked up. Aha, I said to myself, I said, this is an accordion filler! For those not familiar with an accordion filler, this design is a pump filler with a sac that’s open at both ends (one for the section and the other for the button).

The sac is pleated like a concertina’s bellows, and pressing the button compresses the bellows to expel air.

Releasing the button allows the bellows to expand, drawing ink up the breather tube, exactly the same as in a Vacumatic or a button filler. On the next downstroke, the tiny amount of ink in the breather tube can move with less resistance than the ink in the barrel, so the breather tube evacuates and allows more air to go. This makes room for the next inhalation of ink, and the process continues until the pen is filled.

So that’s it, right? Nope. Looking down the button’s side, I espied a threaded ring screwed into the same threads that mate with the blind cap. Under that threaded ring, the button has a flange to keep it from flying out the end of the barrel, and a spring. There are a couple of seals in there, too.

This is a Dunn-style pump filler (above), with a spring substituted for the user’s muscle on the upstroke. I like it! The only other pen I’ve seen with a filler like this is an Ancora LE based on the Perla body style.

Okay, so the pen is interesting to a geek like me. But there’s more. It’s called a Compactor Standard, and it wasn’t made in the U.S.A., or in Europe or Japan, either. According to its owner (to whose mother it was a gift from her then-future husband), it was known affectionately in its home country as pretinha, “the little black one.” That endearment looks to me like Portuguese — and if the pen wasn’t made in Europe it pretty much has to have been made in Brazil. Yup, that’s what the imprint says.

The real interest in this little pen, then, is its nationality: another country heard from!